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Black Crepe, Red Myth
Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train left Washington to take his remains home to Springfield 150 years ago today. Among the commemorative works about the Lincoln cortège is one that suits this blog perfectly: The Lonesome Train. It was a 25-minute radio opera written in 1942 by Earl Robinson, a self-described “working class Communist composer.” Robinson and…
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Really Apt, O’Gara
Responding to my Lead Belly post, the highly alert James O’Gara brought up Joni Mitchell’s The Boho Dance. I hadn’t known of this song, or that Mitchell had weighed in on the perennial folk-music debate about authenticity—thanks James! The songwriters and musicians of her world, and going back at least to the 1930s, were at…
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Lead Belly
There’s a new documentary about the blues and folk genius Huddie Ledbetter (1888-1949) on the Smithsonian Channel. Legend of Lead Belly follows the career of the 12-string guitar wonder who absorbed the music of rural and small-town America in his travels through his native Louisiana and Texas. The writer and arranger who gave us Goodnight Irene,…
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. . . and More in the New Year
Traveling to Los Angeles recently, I saw one young woman wearing a Che Guevara shirt and another clutching a handbag decorated with Mao’s face. The high-end toy and gizmos store near my office sells an expensive statue of Joseph Stalin; maybe it’s ironic in intent, but still. In other words, Marxism may have gone down…
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The Year in Retro Commie Chic
The phrase “retro commie chic” was likely coined by Glenn Collins of the New York Times. Collins’ article about Greenwich Village’s K.G.B. Bar appeared in 1998; in the years since, the place has become a literary hub. According to a dining guide put out by New York magazine, “Today, the red menace congregates here—if graduate-level…
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November Feature
The Fast-Talking Howard Fast. This month’s guest essay is on the historical novelist Howard Fast (Citizen Tom Paine, Conceived in Liberty, Spartacus). It is graciously provided to Painting the Culture Red by historian Ron Capshaw. You can find it under Pages (top left).
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Boris Morros
Two in a row. Airing on TCM right after the Dore Schary movie was a 1937 comedy with Carol Lombard, Fred MacMurray, and Dorothy Lamour called Swing High, Swing Low. “Music by Boris Morros,” it said in the credits. My bleary eyes opened and I perked up. Here was another Painting the Culture Red connection.…
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The Liberals, III – Dore Schary
This morning, in the wee hours—your editor was suffering from insomnia—the Turner Classic Movies channel aired The Metro Goldwyn Mayer Story, a movie short with Dore Schary, MGM’s vice president in charge of production, announcing the studio’s offerings for 1951. We said this site would explore the different attitudes toward the Soviet Union on the part…
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Painting the Culture Red 